T-Mobile Announces G2, First HSPA+ Cell Phone in U.S.

T-Mobile officially announced its G2 smartphone Thursday, the first phone designed for its high-speed HSPA+ network and possibly the Googliest phone ever.

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T-Mobile officially announced its G2 smartphone Thursday, the first phone designed for its high-speed HSPA+ network and possibly the Googliest phone ever.

Running the latest version of Google's Android, 2.2 "Froyo," the G2 is full of Google services, T-Mobile said. The sliding, QWERTY-keyboarded phone comes with Google Voice built-in, including the ability to transfer your current mobile number to the Google Voice system. Google's new Voice Actions voice-command feature, Google Goggles, and apparently every other Google thing that Google could come up with are also pre-loaded.

From a hardware perspective, the G2 is a gray phone whose 3.7-inch, 800-by-480 touch screen slide-flips back on an unusual hinge to reveal a four-row QWERTY keyboard. The unusual keyboard lacks a dedicated number row, but has a large space bar and a dedicated "www/com" key for typing in Web addresses. The phone runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon MSM7230 processor, which seems to trade some speed for long battery life; it's an 800-MHz processor rather than the 1-GHz we've seen in other Snapdragon devices.

Other specs include a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p HD video recording, Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, 4 G-bytes of internal storage and a pre-installed 8GB memory card. There's a 3.5-mm headset jack, Swype's virtual keyboard, and support for Adobe Flash 10.1 in the Web browser.

As the first HSPA+ phone, the G2 can download at speeds of up to 14.4 megabits per sec on T-Mobile's network. That's double the speed of T-Mobile's and AT&T's fastest previous phones, which operated at 7.2 Mbps - but it still doesn't reach the maximum speed of T-Mobile's network, which runs at theoretical speeds of up to 21 Mbps.

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In real-life circumstances, we've gotten speeds more like 5 Mbps with USB modems on T-Mobile's HSPA+ system. That's the fastest 3G system where it's available, and it often matches Sprint's 4G WiMAX on speed. T-Mobile says the new network reaches 100 million people in 55 cities, and it plans to cover 200 million people this year.

The G2 will be the most powerful QWERTY-keyboarded smartphone in T-Mobile's lineup when it launches. In the carrier's overall lineup, it will compete with the Samsung Vibrant, which only has HSPA 7.2 Internet speeds but runs a faster 1-GHz processor. We're looking forward to comparing the two Android smartphones.

T-Mobile didn't announce a price for the G2; it said it will be available "later this month," with the first pre-orders going to g2.tmobile.com.

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta.
Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed...
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